


To be as one I'll have to forget we're two

by soulhead



Series: Footage de gueule [10]
Category: Men's Football RPF
Genre: Empathetic bound, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Soulmates
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-24
Updated: 2019-06-07
Packaged: 2020-03-13 18:50:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 11,462
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18946774
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/soulhead/pseuds/soulhead
Summary: and I love us too much for that.Or, Paul and Antoine are soulmates and the latter is afraid to lose himself in the process of solidifying their bond.





	1. Gone with the wind

**Author's Note:**

> This fic happens in the same universe as my other fic called “The sun is shining and the birds are singing and because today is the very last day of my existence, they will sing forever.”. Enjoy !

 

 

For all his 22 years of living, Antoine's history starts to write itself now, as he walks to his first national team call-up as a senior player. At least, it's what it feels like to him : his mind tells him their generation is destined to build something great together.

If he's right in this hope, he supposes it's typical of him that the very first chapter of his life begins with him being late. He specifically remembers being told to come by Clairefontaine at 11AM, yet it's almost 12 AM when his legs climb two steps at a time the stairs leading to the entry of the building.

He's sweating and is out of breath when he reaches the front porch and he's almost instantly greeted by members of the staff who beset him with a flurry of logistical informations. He nods along and mumbles a few yes or no when prompted, content to be finally protected from the pouring rain.

When he finally enters the insides of Clairefontaine, it's to be surrounded by an effervescence of activity, similar to the one somebody would observes in an anthill : luggages are being dragged in every directions by the staff, people in suit are talking among themselves and his teammates interact in different groups scattered all over the place. Without hesitation, he walks to the biggest group of fellow footballer he finds, feeling like an overexcited toddler on his first day of preschool.

He meets and learns new names : a few players are younger than him but most athletes are older such as Lloris, Sissoko, Matuidi and there are too many other names, other faces he'll try his hardest to remember in details.

He's quickly pulled into the on-going game of table-tennis that was already unfolding as he arrived. Of course, he's eliminated after the first round and he's happy leaning back against the wall watching the last opponents play, when his attention is irresistibly called elsewhere.

There's another boy, who he hasn't yet greeted, standing in the hallway. He must have arrived late too, judging by the way he's still fully clothed in a heavy raincoat. Droplets of waters are dripping from his hair, a clear clue that the weather of Yvelines is still set on tarnishing all of their arrival here. To the exterior point of view, he would almost look comical in the way he seems to have simply fallen in a fountain on his way.

However, as Antoine lays his stare on him, his breath hitches and he can't help but stand upright as if it would allow him to not miss a single detail of this man. Everything about him, from his high cheekbone to his imposing stature seems to encourage Antoine to get closer to marvel at him. From far away, he can still perceive more than the physical appearance of this man, there's an inviting aura around him that is almost palatable. The dim light that managed to pierce through the clouds seems to agglomerate around him. It makes him look almost ethereal.

Antoine needs to get closer to him. His entire body tenses even more than he already was with this realization and suddenly, he's not the master of his own body anymore as he gives into the magnetic pull guiding him to this stranger.

He senses the intense weight of the other's stare on him as they meet halfway.

“It's you.” the man quietly whispers as Antoine feels the other hand of the boy settling on his own. The patch of skin on his hand feel attacked by a thousand feathers as this nameless stranger gently caresses it with his thumb. Paradoxically, he senses his core has been ignited by a blaze of fire and the only logical conclusion settles into his mind: he's met his soulmate.

It’s an evidence, an absolute truth that resonates in his mind with such vigor that it seems it was always there in a corner of his mind, waiting this moment to resurface.

At this instant, Antoine feels like nothing could put him more at ease than staying there, to face his soulmate and to look closely at every details that one by one constitutes his face. He's right at his place there, under the intense stare of this other part of himself. Unfortunately for him, this moment of silent observations between them is interrupted by a distant call of someone's name.

“Paul ! You're there finally !” says the man he remember introduced himself as Lucas “Come here help us win this tournament !” he says as he drags away his soulmate, who answer by the name of Paul apparently. It is somehow ill-fitted : such a simple name for someone so extraordinary.

Left alone in the middle of the hallway, he's intent on following him when a pair of suited men starts talking to him and blocks his way. For the next 30 minutes he's stuck in a discussion with one of the assistant manager, who make a great deal of explaining him all the things that there is to know about being called up in the senior team.

From time to time, he throws glances at his soulmate who seems quite the social butterfly : people gravitate around him, pulling him into discussion and games.

They spend the rest of the afternoon like that, almost playing cat and mouse, stealing glances from one another while they both attempt to not be too obvious to the exterior viewer. As everybody starts to grow hungry, they finally settle at the cantina next to one another. Antoine's still engaged in a discussion that he can't seem to escape no matter how hard he tries and Paul seems to be facing the same problematic. It's infuriating, to be this close to his soulmate and yet being unable to interact with him.

Antoine feels his right hand, the one closest to his mate's direction, tingling and consumed whole by the yearning of reaching his mate directly, as if the small distance that separates them is still too incredibly big. He feels his vision swirls dangerously and his ears become scalding hot as blood rushes to his head. The calmness that enveloped him when they just met starts to be weakened by the growing nervousness he is experiencing. He's almost tempted to make a beeline to the nearest toilet to regain control of himself when a small pressure begins to be applied on his thigh. When he looks under the table, he realizes it's Paul's knee and just like that, everything falls into place once again.

 

***

 

It's past 4PM when the endless streams of information and solicitations die down and finally, they're ushered to their rooms and told to settle themselves in until dinnertime.

Him and Paul got separated unconsciously along the way and Antoine's hurriedly has unpacked his belongings before jumping out of his room. As dumbfounded as he was in front of his soulmate, he didn't even get to introduce himself and he’s intent on correcting this first misstep.

As he grabs his front door and opens it, he's met with the sight of Paul with wide-eyes, visibly ready to knock on his door.

“Oh ! I was gonna go looking for you, seems like I'm not the only one who had this idea !” Antoine tentatively say as he scratches the back of his neck.

“What are you on about ? I'm looking for the kitchen, I visibly lost my way !”

“Oh, sorry, I...The kitchen is in the ..” Antoine begins to say as he fidgets, embarrassed by his eagerness to assume him and Paul were on the same page.

“Relax, I'm joking I was looking for you too !” Paul retorts as his face breaks into a smile.

Antoine beams at him and lets his soulmate enters to room. He's left standing there awkwardly as Paul explores the piece, casually rummaging through the decorations and his belongings.

"So, not like you speak much but can't recognize your accent, where do you come from ?" asks Paul as he settles on his bed, patting the mattress in a gesture to invite him to join him.

He does join him, hastily settling himself to face his soulmate while answering Paul's first question. They soon engage in an easy discussion, absorbing each other's words like it’s the only way to parch a dehydration they both suffered from for too long without knowing.

Paul's in the middle of talking about his teammates back in Turin when Antoine feels his eyes narrowing to the way his own right hand had been absentmindedly stroking Paul's shoulder. He doesn't mean to lose focus on his soulmate's talking, he's genuinely curious about everything that concerns him. Yet, it's the second time today an overpowering instinct drives him to compulsively touch him to map out every single part of Paul's body.

The sudden silence re-center his concentration as he notices his soulmate too has stopped engaging in the discussion and is focusing on the calming strokes he receives from Antoine.

"Do you think it's normal ?" Antone wonders outloud, looking at his fingers.

"You feel it too ?"

"Yes. It's like there's something pushing me to not lose physical contact with you…It's like-"

"Like you've been stung by a bee and you permanently feel like you're scratching the stung ?

”Yes ! Exactly !”

“It’s the way our link is speaking to us...It's-...It's telling us to get to know each other.”

“You can hear it speaks ?”

“No, but-...It can only mean that, right ? You know, I've been waiting for this moment a long time.” Paul confesses, his expression growing distant.

As they both focus on the feel of each other’s skin, Paul tells him how he knew Antoine was his soulmate since he won the euro as a junior. His soulmate can barely stops the emotions from breaking through his wet eyes as he recalls how one day, he saw a picture of Antoine's on a website after their victory and how he felt the pull, the same one Antoine's been feeling since he saw Paul in the lobby of Clairefontaine. However, 4 years ago Paul couldn't just reach him by making a few steps. He had no means of communication to reach to him, just the certainty that one day they would be able to meet.

Words aren't strong enough to convey Antoine's compassion, to express how brave Paul was to wait for him all those years, to not get mad with the yearning he must have been terraced with for all those years. It must have been torture to know that the person you were made for, your own soulmate was out there in the world, yet you didn't know how to get to know each other.

At this thought, Antoine can do nothing but encircle his arms around Paul's torso and hope it'll calm the streams of tears that threaten to roll on his soulmate's face. They fall asleep like that, in each other’s arms and at peace despite the raw emotions they've been experiencing since meeting.

 

***

 

Antoine doesn’t know much about soulmates. Unlike Paul, he never even considered it as a phenomenon that could occur to him. He’s always been too focused into his obsession with football to care for such a rare and abstract occurrence.

Yet one thing is clear, he’s not his own anymore. He’s part of someone else now. The strangeness of it all makes his guts twist in a unpleasant way.

Alone in his bathroom and the delicious warmness of his soulmate's body-heat gone, he has no choice to worry about how his nerves seems focused on localizing Paul and to be as close as possible to him. Yet, if physically he could maybe one day accommodate to being constantly hyper-aware of Paul, even when he’s not in the same room, intellectually and emotionally speaking, he hasn’t been able to fully comprehend what was happening to him.

One second he was Antoine, ready to make a positive impression among his fellow french teammates and the second after he wasn't anymore, _they were_.

As he dries himself off after exiting the shower he was taking, he senses a hand squeezing his bare shoulder.

“We’ll figure it out. Don't worry, we’ve got time.” says Paul who must have been roused from sleep after feeling him gone from his bedsheets, voice clear and steady breaking through the endless anxious thoughts of Antoine's psyche.

Yes, his soulmate’s right. They’ve got the rest of their life.

For the next ten days, they spend their time together training, talking and confiding into one another. During this short period of time, he learns more about Paul than he ever learned about a single human being. He listens with rapt attention as his soulmate shares his ambitions and doubts as a professional athlete, as a young man and as one part of a soulbound. Antoine opens himself up fully to Paul in return too and can only hopes it’ll be enough to definitively make him forget about the pain inflicted by the four years his soulmate had to endure without him.

When the international break is over and their short time in close proximity comes to an end, he leaves Clairefontaine with an easy mind. Navigating his life with the link that now unites him with Paul won't be easy, but he'll be alright. After all, Paul will be with him along every steps of the way and it's all that matters.

 

***

 

The first morning back to Madrid is spent with stiff articulations and a migraine, as he and Paul waited until the last possible flight to go on their separate ways.

Normally, he would be happy and giddy with excitement to see his club teammates after a small break, most of them are the people he grew up with in Real Sociedad's academy. To some extents, he is, but there's something else or rather s _omeone_ else who keeps distracting him, making him unable to stop daydreaming about the blissful days they just just spent together.

His reveries are even reinforced by the text he just received moments ago :

 

 _From La Pioche :_  
Just arrived in Turin, can't wait to see you next saturday  
Today, 9:24 PM

 

He's typing his answer when he notices his coach approaching him and extending his hand to him as a greeting gesture.

“So, I've heard your first international match with the french senior team went well ?”

“Yes, it was great !”

“Good, I trust you this small vacation will mean you'll focus on the end of the season with us ?”

Ah, there it is, the habitual thinly veiled criticism about his so-called lack of implication in his club's success since negotiations have begun with Athletico Madrid for a transfer at the end of the season...

“Of course, you can count on me !” he vehemently says even if it never sounded more like an empty promise than before.

This answer must satisfy his coach as they quickly part ways, Antoine pretending the need to go back to the locker room to search for a missing pair of boots to escape the cold disdain of his coach.

 

 

 _To La pioche:_  
I have a flight at 9PM friday, I could come earlier ? Coach's already trying to rile me up lol  
Today, 9:35 AM

 

 _From La Pioche :_  
Please do ! You wanna talk about your coach ?  
Today, 9:36 PM

 

Five minutes and a small phone-call with his soulmate later, he makes his way outside of the training hall to join his teammates on the training grounds.

Once the pep-talk of their coach is finished, they all begin their warm-ups on exercise mats. Antoine lays on his back, following the instruction of their coach. A blinding sun shines right to his face and suddenly, his teammates, the training grounds and everything else fade to almost nothingness in his mind. All he can think of is his soulmate, who if he felt like it, could rise his head and see the same sky as him, even hours away from him.

The rest of the training is spent in high-spirits, each of his steps light as a feather and his enthusiasm potent like he had the vigor of two men in his legs.

  
***

 

Their first dates, because it's what their meeting can be described as, are remarkably stress free.

He supposes knowing your date is your soulmate eases the sometime painfully awkward first stage of a developing relationship. There's no novelty between them, no bashfulness : only the desire to spend as much time as possible in the company of each other.

Today's date feels like the perfect example of how everything they do together seems instinctive. It's been six months they've met each other, six months since their lives have been permanently altered and yet they behave around one another like usual, like the passing of time stopped to mean anything to them. They've spent most of their day lounging in Paul's garden, sharing anecdotes about their daily life in their respective clubs and snuggling against one another.

Now, he's eating his part of the pizza they ordered while looking amusedly at his soulmate. Paul is enthusiastically dancing to a playlist he created and making a show for Antoine before  he jostles him on his feet.

“Come on 'toine, show me you can dance ?!” he says as he puts a song of Drake on his speakers.

Fortunately, his pathetic attempts to get in rhythm with Paul's complicated dance moves are put to an end when Paul engulf him in a hug that makes him lose his footing as he's almost lifted from the floor.

“If only I had knew since the beginning my soulmate would be someone who doesn't know how to dance !” Paul mocks, laughter bubbling loudly from his chest. A few minutes have passed and Paul doesn't let him go from his embrace, instead choosing to sway him in a repetitive motion from left to right.

“Didn't know you could slow-dance to Drake...” he quietly remarks before resting his head on Paul's left shoulder.

Later on, when their feet start to hurt from dancing for so long, they fell back in each other's arms easily on the sofa and settle themselves there comfortably.

He must have fallen asleep to the sound of grasshoppers and the distant murmurs of the city, because when he's awoken again, his eyelids are hurting him as a blinding light seems to have been lit on next to him.

He blinks his eyes opens once, twice, before he realizes that the light comes from their arms, their hands, from every part of themselves. His and Paul's skin are translucent as if the light emits from the very core of their body and cannot be contained by their physical entity. The light feels alive, changing the shape of it's aura and the intensity of it's glow. It's a mesmerizing sight, but one that shouldn't be possible.

“Shhhh, it's alright Antoine...” reassures Paul, expression distant and fixated on the way the light reflect on his hands.

“What is it ?” he asks, voice high and panicked.

“It's us, it's-...It's our bound. I'm glad you're starting to see it too.”

“How-...How long have you been able to see it like that ?”

“Since I saw you...”

“Since Clairefontaine ? But why didn't yo-”

“No...Not since Clairefontaine. Since the first time I saw a picture of you. You were glowing so bright ! I thought I was getting mad, it was like a little bit of your soul was carried through a simple picture...”

“Paul...I'm sorr-”

“It's not your fault. Now you're there ! Soon, when our bound will be fully formed, we'll be unstoppable. We won't even need words to communicate. People will- people will see it too, not just us...They'll see us and our bound and they'll know.”

Paul's words feels like a promise and Antoine hopes he'll see it soon too, how unstoppable they're going to become.

 

***

 

Against all odds, his life doesn't get more complicated than that. Their bonds doesn't always manifest physically and he's still Antoine, still living the same life, still fully himself.

It's what he tells a few weeks later to Théo, his little brother and confident, when he visits him during one of the rare small vacation he doesn't take to visit Paul. The only changes he's still trying to adapt to is the way his body yearns for a connection with Paul.

Contrarily to what they initially thought, this strange tingle sensation on their fingertips doesn't necessarily demand they engage in physical contact to disappear. It took them months to figure it out, but it can be reduced to almost nothing but a small unnoticeable pressure when he's talking with his soulmate or even just looking at him. Their soul-bound only demands interactions, no matter which form they take : as long as they are in each other's mind, their bond is appeased.

Their relationship doesn't need this manifestation of their link to bloom though. Paul and him are more than eager to meet whenever they can, sometime at Antoine's house, sometime at Paul's or even in a country that is neither of theirs. When they can't manage the few hours of travel it take to be reunited, they chat by messages, by calls or just by sending each other's pictures or videos recalling the day they lived separately.

Their link, just like their human bond, starts to grow increasingly stronger. He experiences it in the way he often starts to sense a ghost of Paul's presence alongside him. Sometime, he could be talking to his teammates while running laps and he would just want to turn his head to ask Paul's opinion on the matter they are discussing, convinced for a second his soulmate is right by his side.

It's in those moments that he feels like he's loosing his footing : when he's confronted with the fact that the link that ignite their souls still scare him, it still feels like a totally foreign concept to him, a phenomenon too big for him to fully grasp and control.

But it's worth it. Now that he's seen the full extent of the deep connection that unite them, the way their mind and their personality fit with one another, he's almost not scared anymore of it.

 

Almost.

 

However, being almost not scared anymore still means he feels like he has to perpetually quiet down the ardors between him and Paul. He sometime feels guilty, he sees the way Paul's glare regularly fixates on his lips or his torso when the heat of the country they're in starts to be too much and he strips himself half-naked. Paul's not subtle, he recognizes the meaning behind the intensity of his stares and the lingering touches, like his soulmate want nothing more than to kiss him and cross the last barrier that separates them.

Antoine desires nothing more than that too but he can't allow to indulge themselves, not when everything between them has been unfolding too fast already.

Besides, they have all their life to figure it out, remember ?

 

***

 

Months have passed since he was running toward the entrance of Clairefontaine to meet his soulmate. In-between, he has still managed to be late half of the time he received a call-up to the french national team's headquarters and today isn't changing this habit of him.

This time he's one hour and a half late. Nobody is in the main entrance anymore and he's impatiently checking every room of the lobby in hope of finding Paul, when he notices two familiar faces.

“So you're not even gonna say hello to your seniors before looking for a certain someone, eh Antoine ?” Lloris calls out to him.

“I...I’m just looking for where everyone is..I mean ..Hi, how are you guys ?” he tries to deflate as he looks at him and Giroud.

“Saw him going to the backyard for a game of football, now go !” Lloris cuts him while looking at him with a knowing glint in his eyes, not even responding to his question.

He doesn’t bother to try to disobey his captain and almost run to where his soulmate supposedly is.

Paul's indeed playing a game of football with a few of their teammates, although they're mostly lazily passing the ball at each others while trying to shoot penalties.

As Antoine impatiently joins them, Paul must feel his presence because he turns his attention from them and start making his way toward him.

“Hey ! Paul don't give up the game like that, you'll own us 200 more euros !” says a voice that grow more distant as he and Paul's reduce the distance that separates them.

“Hi you.” murmurs Paul as he squeezes his shoulder and envelops him in a bone-crushing embrace.

Antoine exhales and wonders how he ever managed to live without his soulmate, an invasive thought that has become a recurrent question in his psyche.

The answer is always the same.

It's not important. Not when he has Paul right next to him even when they're physically hundreds of kilometers apart. Not when he's starting to think he'll never be able to feel happier than in the present moment.

 

***

 

It's only much later, at the dawn of the summer 2016, that Antoine realizes the extent in which his body was altered by having a soulmate. It happens when the French national team is traveling to Nantes for one of the last international match before the beginning of the competition.

Paul and him are busy animatedly playing a game of Uno with Matuidi in the quietness of the bus they’re traveling in as Antoine spots a small figure approaching them. It belongs to a young man that he doesn't recognize.

“Oh hi, you must be one of the new recruit of the team ? Wanna join for a game of Uno ?” he says with a bright smile, hoping to come across as inviting as possible to make this new colleague comfortable.

Yet, he must have said something inappropriate, as he feels the weight of Matuidi's cold glare on him.

“...Antoine, you already met ! N'golo played with us in march against Netherlands?”

“Really ?”

“Ah guys, don't worry about Antoine’s weak memory, poor guy hasn't been able to rest, come and take Antoine's place ! He's useless anyway !” interjects Paul before forcing Antoine to stand up and leave his place as everybody in the bus snickers at him.

A dozens of minutes later, in which Antoine has only been able to pretend to sleep while not letting it on he's currently dying of embarrassment, he feels the seat of the alley next to him being occupied.

“I don't remember him either ! ” Paul ushers to him “Blaise told me we all met when he played with us when we were trying on that Teqball thing ? Does his face rings any bell to you ?”

“I- I remember ...” Antoine begins as he recalls someone explaining him the rules of this strange mix between tennis table and football that is teqball. He remembers Paul's enthusiasm about this game, he remembers his laugh, his over-zealousness about the points counting system. He remember a thousand of other things, but all the faces around them in those memories are blurry “I remember you and me, playing that game...I know we were surrounded by other people but...I can't see them precisely ?”

Paul’s eyes widen considerably as he hits the armrest in triumph, obvious to Antoine’s uneasiness.

“Fuuuck !! It's our bound ! We're hyperfocusing on each other !!” Paul whispers while putting a hand on his forehead and leaning back in his seat “I saw a testimony on youtube about a couple of soulmates and they- they were describing the exact same thing ! It's- Can’t believe it's gonna happen soon !”

“What ? What is going to happen ?”

For the next hour, Paul get carried on in a frantic explanation of what they're experiencing. This ability to focus only on each other, the effect their bond will keep on having on them as it keeps growing the more memories they share together and as they nurture their bond : he recites it all like he’s reading it from a book.

Antoine's not totally ignorant on this subject , he too knows the end result : ultimately their bound will allow them to communicate beyond gesture, beyond words.

He's heard about it, his little brother had two soulmates in his class when he was in younger. He has had to go through hours-long phonecall hearing him ramble about how “cool” reverberation was, this ability to amplify a simple positive memory or emotion by sending it back and forth through your soulbound.

He knows all that, not as precisely as Paul or Théo, but he knows it. It doesn't feel “cool” at all. It feels like the beginning of dementia, his brain blurring the memories that do not concern directly his soulmate. How many things has he forgotten ? How many time his perception of life has been altered by their bound ?

The fear he's been trying to repress about their link comes back to him in waves. He has no way to stop this process, Paul is his soulmate. He cannot change that nor does he want to. But at what cost ? He just want to develop his relationship with Paul, to spend as much time as he can with him and to keep on feeling more enamored with every aspects of his being. He doesn't want the rest, this tunnel vision, this forgetfulness, the lack of control.

While thinking that he seeks solace in the sight of his soulmate whose face is only partially illuminated by the dim light of the bus and reaches for his hand like a drowning man would to a buoy.

Paul's reassuring semi-circle caress on the top of his right hand seems to calm his mind and he progressively drift off to sleep, lulled by Paul’s stories and by the way his brain doesn’t seem to respond to him anymore, rendered silent by the irrational fear coursing through him.

 

***

 

Antoine is trying his best not to panic, but he can't help to be angry at himself. He lured himself into a false sense of security : he thoughts he could avoid losing control over himself when he had already lost every bit of it.

As he steps foot in Madrid, he dedicates himself to his sport and progressively becomes the first and the last person to be at the training grounds.

When his teammates throw him curious and inquiring glares (especially Koke or Lucas) he invokes a multitude of reasons for his zealous behavior.

He always omits to say pushing his body to the limit it can handle is the only moment when he feels like he has control over his body.

He doesn't care if it hurts, if the physiotherapists frown at him when they sense the way his muscles deal with the exertion he puts on his body. He needs to pretend he's staying whole like he said to his brother months ago. He needs to see things around him as they are and to remember them fully.

He needs the tremor in his legs to stop when he thinks about how visceral the need of seeing Paul's has started to become him.

 

***

 

Unfortunately for him, the next time he meets with Paul, everything is set into motion to accelerate. It was inevitable, he's tired of the constant disconnect between what he needs and what he wants. A lapse of judgment was bound to happen.

It began innocently, they got caught into a nasty thunderstorm on their way back from the restaurant in London that Antoine desperately wanted them to eat at. When they finally reach Paul's home, they have both started to shiver thanks to the rain.

“How about a bath ?” proposes Paul.

Antoine of course agrees and they busy themselves in letting the tub fill itself with warm and soothing water. Paul ends up emptying half of the different soap bottles Antoine has left near the bathtub and he hurryingly strips himself, except for his boxer, before he jumps into the mixture he created.

Antoine follows, intending on resting himself on the opposite side of Paul to face him.

“Hey come on 'toine, come here, wanna cuddle !” Paul says while patting at his lap with one hand and mimicking grabby-hands like a toddler would with the other.

And so, he settles himself on Paul's lap and rests his back on his soulmate's chest. He's thankful for the ambient heat of the room, he can at least pretend to himself that the flush of his skin is caused by that and not by how close they are and how good the feel of their skin against one another is.

Apart from the occasional sound of drops of water falling from the tap and hitting the water, the room is silent. They stay like that without moving, starting to feel their muscles finally relax as they slowly adapt to the warmth of the water. Antoine let it soothes his body and washes over the remnants of the uncomfortable dampness of his clothes.

He progressively melt into his soulmate's chest and let his brain be silent like their surroundings, his only occupation being to concentrate on the way Paul's skin feel.

After what seems like an eternity, he's surprised by a gentle humid and hot sensation on his shoulder blade. Surprised, his left leg jerks in reflex and this sudden movement causes a small cataclysm in the bath's water as ripples appears on it's surface. The sensation ceases as Antoine understand Paul was dropping kisses on him.

“No, it's alright, keeps doing it !” states Antoine, unable to stop those words to cross his lips.

His soulmate obeys happily and carry on pressing lingering and timid kisses on his shoulders and his neck.

Antoine can do nothing but crane his neck to the right, silently asking for more.

If Antoine's brain wasn't so fuzzy, he would realize how they both crossed a territory they never allowed themselves to enter until now. What they're doing isn't just a matter of being close to one another physically. It's a matter of physical intimacy, it's about behaving like lovers.

But Antoine can't stop it, he's never been brave or strong-willed like his soulmate. For a moment, he lets himself feel without restraint, without angst and a priori. He forgets about his doubts and reticence, about his fear of losing sight of himself. He'll deal with whatever comes from this moment of self-indulgence tomorrow.


	2. Back with a revenge

Tomorrow comes at dawn. Paul's bedside is cold and distant sounds of kitchen utensils are coming from downstairs. His soulmate must be preparing them breakfast, a ritual he dutifully followed everytime they were together. In the beginning, Antoine tried to persuade him he would be just as happy to eat a few fruits and toasts and that Paul shouldn't bother himself to cook him a full breakfast course. The puppy stare Paul threw at him when he made this remark ended the debate and it's in morning like this that Antoine can't say he regrets losing this argument against Paul.

As Antoine extirpates himself from the sheets, the vivid light of their bound that shines through his body isn't shielded anymore by the cover he was sleeping under. Like always, he loses track of time as he stares hypnotized at the shimmering form radiating from his body.

When he finally regains his composure, he has to make multiple attempts at standing upright. His body is slow. Slower than what it should be after a good night of sleep. His vision seems blurred at the edge. All his other senses are also muffled, like he's using them underwater.

It's the first time their bound manifesting itself has such an impact on him. He knew letting his walls down and indulging Paul in being intimate with him would mean facing the consequences of his lack of resolves. In the state that he's right now, he cannot find it in himself to panic. The only thing he knows is that he need to be closer to Paul.

Yet, joining his soulmate appears to be a more complex challenge than it appears. His mind is present, but his body and the way he reacts to exterior stimuli feels disconnected from himself. Each of his movements and steps are slow, his feet feels like he is walking on cotton instead of marble. Fortunately, he still manage to cautiously descend each of the steps while supporting himself by leaning on the wall.

An eternity later, he finally reaches the first floor and distracted as he is, Antoine trips over one of the small table in front of the kitchen. The sound of a vase crashing to the floor resonates in the house.

“Hey, hey Antoine, what are you doing ?” says Paul when he finally notices him and appears in front of him.

“Hmm ?” he only manages to murmur, not trusting the words in his head to be articulated well enough by his throat.

“...Let's get you seated, you seem a little bit out of it.” his soulmate worries outloud as he leads him carefully to lay on him on a soft surface.

When the light that shines through their body gradually fades from their body and his surrounding regain it's sharpness, Antoine notices the clock on the opposite end of the room indicates that it's only 7AM.

“Why were you up so early to make us breakfast ?” he asks curiously and instantly feels his soulmate tensing behind him.

“Couldn't sleep. Listen Antoine...I-I'm sorry for what happened yesterday....In the bath, what I did, I know it's not-You don't want that right now and- I felt- It was out of place what I did.”

“'was alright.” Antoine begins, voice still rough from misuse “Maybe you could show me more ?”

“Show you- I- Antoine...”

“You don't want to ?”

“YES ! I mean, what you want, I want.”

“Good, because I want what we've both been wanting for a while...”

A few seconds of silences follow Antoine's declaration.

“Wait, what are we talking about ?” Paul finally says with a exaggerated confused expression on his face.

“Paul !” he reprimands, faking exasperation before joining his soulmate in laughter.

Beside him he feels Paul shifts and slowly but surely, his soulmate get more adventurous in the caress he's providing him, hands becoming dangerously close to the elastic of his boxer. The once lighthearted atmosphere between them now gives place to a new kind of tension, thick as it can be and where only their heavy breathing can be heard.

The sweet irony of it all is that Antoine, who spent months wishing things between him and Paul would come to a halt, now only want them to be faster. Everything is so excruciatingly slow, it's as if Paul's ready to withdraw his hand at any moment, waiting for Antoine to say the words. Thankfully, his soulmate seems to understand his needs and finally reaches under his brief, brushing lightly his fingers over the few parcels of skin that remained unexplored by him until now.

And Antoine can't get enough. His needs of control suddenly resembles a fleeting and futile thought, now long forgotten. He want more, more and more until he experiences everything Paul could ever give him. Under his lover's touch, he senses all his walls being tore down until he's nothing but a ruin for Paul to rebuild.

***

After that, he realizes how he was wrong to assume he knew all about being habited by the visceral feeling of wanting to be close to his soulmate. Now, he get to experience another side of it. It's the hunger : a hunger so devastating it seems his soulbound is gawking at his own heart to satiate itself when it can't be satisfied.

This impression of starvation comes and goes in waves, leaves him trembling and out of breath. Simple interactions with his soulmate aren't sufficient anymore to calm their soulbound. It demands, demands and demands and they can only indulge it by meeting as often as they can. Overall, not much seems to change between them as they already meet as often as possible.

The changes operates underneath the surface : it's in how there's a hint of desperation behind their every moves or in the way Antoine counts every minutes they've got together until they must part their ways once again. Their bound also starts to manifest physically at a higher frequency and for longer period of time.

The most obvious shifts in their behavior is maybe in how they act when they can't allow to meet halfway through the world due to their often conflicting agendas.

He knows Paul has developed a habit of going out with his teammates or to go public events to distract him in those moments. He told him how the noise of other people helped him to fill the void he was feeling. And Antoine, well...He pretends he does the same too when Paul asks him.

The truth is, for him going out or talking to people doesn't work. Instead, he needs quietness and to follow a precise ritual :

It all started after Paul and him traveled together to LA a few months ago. By accident, one of Paul's many sweatshirt ended up in Antoine's case and since then, it has been a lifesaver for him. Whenever he misses Paul too much, his brain acts on autopilot : he retrieves the piece of clothing from one of his drawer, puts it next to a heater and waits a few minutes for it's soft material to grow hot enough. When it is, he wears it and closes his eyes, pretending that the smell and the warmth that now surround him are directly emanating from his soulmate. The hunger ceases instantly and finally, he can try to anchor himself back to the present time.

On particularly long nights, he fantasizes about being sat next to Paul in whatever place he might be in tonight. Head pathetically plunged into his soulmate's sweatshirt, he can dream of spending a nice evening in company of Paul and his friends, in getting more familiar with his daily life in Manchester.

Yet, he hates nothing more than those nights where his heart feels an old abandoned and rusty well, decrepit and purposeless. He knows they shouldn't be this co-dependent, he knows it's not healthy, but they are soulmate, what can they do about it ?

***

It's no wonder then that Antoine proposes they go to a club on their next outing. He needs material to power his imagination when his separation anxiety get the better of him.

In a nameless club of London, they spend hours dancing next to each other, carefree and exhilarated by the way the dim light allows them to stand a little bit closer to each other than they would normally allow themselves in public.

But then, being surrounded by a crowd soon starts to feel like more like a obstacle between them and the way they want to spend their night. They soon retreat themselves in a small VIP booth.

Taking advantage of the privacy, they exchange kisses and they spend the rest of the night snuggling into each other while talking, obvious to anything else in the world. Paul complains about it for a while, pretending to be ashamed by the way they behave more like a couple of old people at a tea party than two lovers in their twenties at a club. Antoine knows it's only banter and that the minute he'll pretends to want to go back to dance, Paul will hold him in place, begging him to stay a little bit longer together.

As the night progresses, even the booth they're in starts to not feel private enough for the both of them and the way they plan to connect to each other on this evening.

When they finally come back to Paul's house, they immediately reach his soulmate's bedroom and Paul let himself fall over the bed on his back. Antoine follows him, putting both his legs over Paul's hips as he straddles him. He let his hands roam over his lover's chest, letting the now familiar tension between them grow. His partner doesn't have that patience judging by the way he feels his goosebumps raising underneath his fingers.

“Let me take care of you 'toine ?” he finally asks while he pulls his chest up to press against Antoine's and let his fingers ghost over his back.

“Yes, yes I'm all yours.” Antoine declares, before surrendering himself to Paul's touch. How could he not accepts this proposal ? Letting Paul make love to him always give him the impression he's being devoured whole by his soulmate for an evening. The latter is equally as gentle as he is restless with his ministrations and Antoine's response is often reduced to being nothing but a gasping mess, a role he's perfectly content to adopt. Tonight is no exception.

In these intimate moments, when the world is reduced to just him and his lover, he feels dainty, like a pretty little thing whose every needs and demands will be answered under Paul's care. The kind of beatitude that overcomes him seems eternal, like nothing could ever hurt him, not with Paul by his side. He never thought an impression like that would unravel him in such ways. It does though, if the tears that systematically begin to pearl his face when he comes down from his high are any indicator.

His emotionality in such moments used to make Paul uneasy : he used to worry himself sick at the sight of his crying soulmate, believing he might have been too careless when they made love. Now, it's a well rehearsed ritual for Paul to hold him close and to whisper sweet nothings in his ears until he's once again able to regain his composure.

God, he loves him too much.

“Me too !” whispers Paul in response to what he didn't realize he said outloud “Imagine how it will be when we'll reverberate Antoine.” Paul carries on as he makes small pause to nibble on Antoine's neck “Imagine it- It'll always be like that, we'll always be this open fully to the other one like we're making love all the time.”

“Isn't that gonna feel a bit creepy then ?” Antoine tries to joke.

“Antoine- Antoine, I'm serious. We should do it. We a-We are ready. We have been both ready for so long, I feel it, I know it we-we could do it right now...”

And Paul looks so, so beautiful, skin still glistening with sweat and hair just long enough to be slightly disheveled and to be messed with. He's his and Antoine's heartbeat starts to pick up once again with this knowledge.

Once again, he's faced with the fact that he could never refuse anything to this man as he nods in approval to his lover's request.

“Really ?”

“Yes, let's do it. Do you have any idea how it works ?” he replies, trying to make his voice as even as possible to not let on his doubts.

“YES ! “ Paul exclaims before he starts rearranging the pillows to make themselves more comfortable “Okay, just lay down and-and...”

“Hey, hey” Antoine cuts him as he reaches to Paul's shoulder to squeeze it in reassurance “It'll be alright...”

“Right sooo...We're just gonna lay down and I'll focus on a positive emotion or even a memory and I'll envision our link and focus on you to send it to your end, okay ?”

“You're not telling me what you're sending me ?”

“Won't tell you that, you'll know in just a few seconds, you're ready ?” he says, his voice high with excitement as he presses their forehead against each other's and closes his eyes to concentrate after Antoine nodded in agreement.

Antoine's prepared for a lot of things, for a trip down memory-lane, for Paul to show him how he loves him in ways he could never tell him until now. He's ready for anything.

Yet, he isn’t prepared for what comes.

As seconds pass in anticipation, he starts to feel a growing pressure on the back of his crane. He's momentarily distracted by it as he reaches his neck to feel what object presses against his skin to cause such a strange sensation. He quickly realizes that there is nothing. Then, the pressure stops being just a light sensation and his brain feels like struck by lightning, every nerves, every neurones set on fire and hurting him relentlessly.

“Paul !” he calls, but the latter doesn't react, eyes still closed and obvious to the outside world.

“PAUL !”

Finally, his lover opens his eyes in confusion as Antoine start to trash his legs in a futile hope to make the pain cease. Then, his mind drifts to somewhere his consciousness can't follow.

***

When he comes around, it takes him a minute to get over the initial disorientation that courses through his mind. Then, he remembers the overcoming pain and the inability to escape from it. Even now, every single of his muscles hurt and he's almost paralyzed by a debilitating headache, a sequel of last night's turns of event.

Paul is next to him, keeping him close, still in the same position as he was before he lost consciousness. He's muttering intelligible words in a voice so quiet that he doesn't sound like Paul at all..

“Hey Paul...”

Not without difficulty, he shifts his whole body in direction of his lover. His soulmate bears an expression he never saw before : one of pure disbelief and sorrow. It’s only he strains his ears that he understands the incoherent mess of words he's repeating :

“I'm sorry, I didn't know it could hurt you like that, I'm sorry, I'm sorry. I'm sorry !”

And Antoine feels suddenly years younger, when he just barely met his soulmate and tried to soothe the pain Paul had to go through before he got to meet Antoine.

They don't talk about what happened. Antoine feels like they should, but the disappointment and the utter devastation that darken his soulmate's eyes are already too much to take in.

Paul waited so long for this moment. He probably wanted to do it on the first day they met. But he didn't, he waited. For Antoine.

No, they can't talk about what happened, not now and maybe not ever. So, to fill up the silence between them and to cover the sound of Paul sobs, Antoine gets into a lengthy monologue of what he wants to do the next time they meet.

It's good enough for now.

***

Pretending that everything is fine between them works surprisingly well when his soulmate prefers to lick this one particular wound away of his stare and when Antoine's at a total loss as what he is supposed to do.

And so, for the sake of maintaining the fragile equilibrium they have, Antoine starts lying. When Paul routinely check up on him, he talks about how training went, what he did with his friends and he listens back carefully to his lover. They talk about almost anything like they always did.

Anything, except the constant headache he's been sensing since what he refers as the “incident”. Whenever he and Paul aren't in close proximity, it's as if a part of Paul is constantly trying to communicate with him via their soulbound without ever noticing it.

Taking aspirin becomes a habit for him even if it only slightly manages to numb the pain. Yet, the pit he feels in his stomach grows day after day as his helplessness to now live a day without pain starts to be an evidence :

He could ask Paul to be more careful, to try to stop himself from reaching to him through their soulbound, but deep down, he knows it's his soulmate's unconscious that is behind it. If it was something Paul could have control over, Antoine would have never felt hurt by it, he knows it.

Antoine's already seen the devastation on his soulmate face when he hurt him once. If lying allows him to not witness this sight once again, he'll do it without a second thought.

Besides, the one month preparation of the Euro 2016 turns out to be a blessing in disguise for the both of them, as it allowed to go back to where it all began. They can pretend the year is still 2014 and everything between them remains unadulterated by recent events.

There, among trusted friend and in this peaceful atmosphere, they flourish again and regrow the few leaves they lost after their failed attempt at communicating through their bond. There, his headaches stop.

Life's at Clairefontaine is incredibly easy, he thinks one day, wrapped in Paul's loving embrace. The cleaning staff never notes how every single morning his bed is already made, like it wasn't even touched. Their teammates are good at turning a blind-eye as well, as they pretend to not notice how his clothes and belongings are all over Paul's room. They feigned not seeing a thing too this afternoon when Antoine was starting to fall asleep on Paul's shoulder instead of participating in the game of ps4. They simply indulged him when Paul stated that he refused to play with a half-awake partner and started shooing them away to let Antoine rest in quietness.

“ You should let you hair grow...“ Paul tells him moments after he woke up, interrupting him in his musing over his teammates understanding behavior.

“Hmmm ?“ he mumbles, sleep still heavily clinging on him.

“I don't know, it would suit you...And for me it's more of you to explore so really it's a win-win situation...”

“Always knew it !”

“What ?”

“Why does everybody else pretend you're all tough ? Always knew you were the kind of guy to say cheesy stuff like that to your partner ! Next thing I know, you're gonna tell me to eat more so there's more of me to enjoy !“ he exclaims while his breath get ragged as he starts to laugh at Paul.

“Shut up, stop laughing at me !”

“It's alright Paul, I'm glad I'm the only one who gets to know you like that” he marks a small pause before continuing “It's a sacrifice I'm willing to make : other people shouldn't have to suffer by hearing you saying cringy stuff like that !”

“Antoine !“ his soulmate elbows him indignantly before trying to smother his mocking laughter by putting his weight on top of Antoine and resting on him.

Yes, there's still moments when everything is just perfect.

***

But then, the moments when nothing is, are countless.

Playing football at top-level get increasingly harder as having a headache become a routine for him. His reflexes, his attention and his mood are all affected negatively by it. Yet, despite everything, he manages to keep hold of the small fraction of control he still has over his life and tires to carry on, pretending his body works with him and not against him.

Unfortunately, his plan is thrown out of the windows when the “incident” repeats itself. He's warming up for a match in La Liga with his club. Training's tough, but it's nothing knew under the stern rules of Simeone. He's in the middle of taking up his pace to shoot at one of the target his coach set on the field when everything starts over again.

This time, he has no lover by his side to hide his head in, to shut down the pain. Here in the middle of the football field, he barely register how his body roughly hits the ground as he lets a surprised scream escape his mouth.

People rush near him, trying to ask him questions he cannot comprehend, the pain being simply too much to concentrate on anything else.

And then, as suddenly as it appeared, everything is over. He pulls it off in front of his colleagues as pain caused by a particularly vivid cramp. He escapes the dubious stares of a few of them by following their physiotherapist in one of their medical room.

When the medical team can only conclude that everything seems in order, he makes his way back to the locker room. He tried to convince the staff that it was nothing serious, but they won't risk anything by making him play this evening.

Defeated, he retrieves his phone in the locker room and see 8 missed calls and a multitude of unread texts.

 

_From La Pioche :_

_Antoine are you alright ? Please answer_

 

_From La Pioche :_

_I just finished a match and we were celebrating our win with the boys and I just wished so much you were there to see me score and I tapped into our link. I couldn't stop myself i'm sorry please i'm sorry understand that_

 

_From La Pioche_

_Please answer ? I swear it was an accident_

 

_From La Pioche_

_Shit just remembered you have a match soon too..Please call me asap when you're reading this_

 

There's at least 15 others messages like that, but he can't read them all. His sight is so unfocused, like his entire body has been emptied of all it's energy after this second incident. He's exhausted and barely finds the force in himself to press on the dial button of his phone. Paul picks up at first dials and repeats the same thing he wrote him by messages. He listens reluctantly without interruption at first, head achy and slow, yet not totally insensible to the way Paul's voice trembles and the rawness of his tone.

He want this call to finish as soon as possible, to isolate himself, to swallow a pill of aspirin and to go back to sleep to make it all stop, even for a few hours. Dealing with his soulmate's despair is not something he has the capacity to do now, not when he just lost his starting spot for today's match.

Three minutes in their call and Paul hasn't stopped frantically rambling and apologizing, never letting Antoine speak.

“Listen, it's alright Paul.” he finally interrupts him, every ounce of his patience having been used “I'm fine I swear, I just want- I'm gonna call it a day okay ? I'm tired. I just want to go back to sleep, for it to stop for just one second and we can discuss about it tomorrow, but for now I'll just go back to sleep, okay ?”

“Excuse me ?” Paul says, after a small blank.

“I said I'm just gonna go to bed and rest...”

“No, before that ? What do you mean, for one second ?”

“I-No, I mean it hurts a lot, it's all.”

“You're a shit liar, you know that ?”

“Paul, I'm exhausted, my head feels like someone's hammering on it and you know why ?Because between the constant headache you're inflicting me when you tap into our bound unconsciously and the debilitating pain you're causing me when you do it consciously, I need a breath okay ?“ he spits, irritated and hoping his message will be heard loud and clear and that soon he'll be able to just close his eyes for a few minutes.

“Are you-Are you kidding me ? Why didn't you tell me about the rest of the time too ?”

It's only at the sound of the strained voice of his soulmate that he realizes what he told him. God, he simply wanted the call to end as soon as possible and without fuss, how did he manage to fuck it up like that ?

“Because I wanted to protect you !”

“Protect ME ? Antoine -”

After that, he can't concentrate on the words he hears coming from his end of the phone. He can only focus on the way he feel brazed by the heat of Paul's anger. In the few years he's known him, he never got to be at the other end of the cold harshness of his soulmate 's ire. He's seen it directed at Paul's coach, at their teammates, but never at himself. This first experience feels like being burned by acid and before he can stop it, dampness starts to pool on his eyelids.

He is so tired. _So, so, so tired._

“Are you crying ? Antoine ?” his soulmate suddenly interrupts himself after hearing a sob Antoine couldn't contain.

“I-I'm sorry Paul, I didn't mean to interrupt you I-”

“Fuck ! Antoine, please. I didn't realize I was screaming at you ! I just..Listen, Antoine. I think you were right it's better if we stop this conversation now, I think I'm way too high-strung after what I did and you're too...”

Tears are maintaining a steady flow of salty water on his face now and he can only sniffles pathetically in response to his soulmate.

“I agree, but-but but we can't finish this call like that.” he manages to say. They need to talk. They need to address the issues they've been trying to hide from. They need to talk about it now, or else they'll never do it, Antoine thinks. With desperation, his left hand tightens on his phone, as if it would force Paul's call to continue.

“We have to, we both aren't in the right mind to have this discussion...I'm sorry for screaming at you, I'm not angry I promise..We'll talk about it this sunday when I'll come to your house, alright ?”

“O-ok. I'm sorry if I lied to you, I'm just so tired...”

“It's okay Antoine. You go rest okay ? You sit down or lay down if you can and you don't strain yourself already more than what you have, okay ?”

“Yes, see you soon...”

With those final words and the beeping tone that follows, Antoine takes his head into his hands, desperately wishing for everything to stop and let himself fall to his knees. He doesn't care people might walk in the locker room and see him like this, he doesn't care about anything at all.

He just want the ground to swallow him whole and to disappear.

***

When they meet face to face, there's nothing to say. At least, nothing else than what was already said in their last phone-call. Antoine knows it's not true, but he isn't brave enough anymore to start a conversation about it.

Paul, who was always of a protective nature over him, now treats him like he's made of fine porcelain. Normally, he would revel under this special treatment, but not when he knows what brought this up.

No matter how hard Antoine tried, things can't go back to normal like after the first incident. Now, his soulmate looks inconsolable and absolutely disgusted at himself to have caused once again this pain on him. Antoine tries to soothe him, telling him it's not his fault, that he didn't realize that he was tapping into their bound. Those words aren't nearly enough to calm his lover's anxiety, but Antoine naively tries to believe it will be sufficient.

And before he knows it, he's reading newspapers reporting about the way Paul suddenly stopped to celebrate the goals he scores with his club. Rumors start to spread about his deteriorating relationship with his coach who blames him for his sudden lack of involvement in the club's performances. Lingard, a friend of Paul he briefly met a few months ago, even texted him. He begged him to watch out for him, to try to help his teammate who according to him seems withdrawn and almost taciturn recently.

He knows what Paul's trying to do, to cut himself from feeling emotions too intense in fear of hurting Antoine's unconsciously. And Antoine...Well, he already hurt Paul more than enough for now. He can't break him further by saying to him that what he is doing is useless, that there's not a day he spends without headaches. He can't destroy the only glimmer of hope Paul has about mending back their dynamic.

It doesn't mean Antoine doesn't miss the old Paul. Gone is the Paul who always had an aura of exuberance around him, who was never afraid to show his interests and his passions. Instead there's a Paul he doesn't know who took his place. This version of him let his shoulder sags and looks frail despite his height. This Paul is the picture definition of a defeated and subdued man.

The old Paul only briefly re-emerges from his slumber when they make love to one another. There, a fraction of himself reappears before fading to nothingness mere minutes after... Every single time, Antoine feels his blood turns ice-cold and he can't help but squeeze his eyes as hard he can, praying for everything to be back in order when he reopens them.

Maybe they just need more time, maybe their bond is still too weak to allow such a complex phenomenon as reverberation. They just need to work on it a little bit more, a little patience and everything will be alright. Maybe he'll swallow his last pill of paracetamol this evening and tomorrow he'll wake up with a clear head and a vibrant Paul by his side.

Or, maybe they'll be stuck like that for the rest of their life. Soulmate in every possible way on the human level, but never fully able to exploit what their bound is supposed to grant them. They'll try, try, try for years, yet nothing will ever change. Their emotions will forever be unsharable, deeply rooted in their respective minds and their bound will never start to manifest itself to other people. They'll live the rest of their life seen as nothing more than best-friend and one day or another, Antoine will wake up having forgotten he even had a soulmate.

Antoine's breath always briefly halts itself at this one last hypothesis. He doesn't think he'll be able to handle it if their lives come to this.

***

Weeks pass, yet nothing change.

Now, when he looks at his soulmate, he doesn't feel any relief or happiness at all. He only sees all his failures. It's for this reason that for the first time in all the years he's known his soulmate, he's almost reluctant to reunite with him during the weekend they planned together. Getting reunited with Paul has now long started to turn hollow : what is the point of being with him when now, even side by side, Antoine feels alone ? It'll be a long weekend of the both of them pretending that their smiles are genuine, that they are making progress in dealing with their soulbound. It'll be nothing but dreadful.

He wishes they could remember the time of unadulterated happiness they shared when they first met, when being with each other was a promise, not...Whatever it is now.

If only Paul could see how he looked back then in that hallway and drenched in rain. He was pure of any worries, his face open like a book and so, so beautiful. Everything between them during those times seemed so simple, so evident when compared to what they have now.

And suddenly, it feels like finally his body and his mind speak with the same voice. He starts to feel his heart hammering against his rib cage, making his every members thrills as a gentle heat courses through every parcel of his body. He doesn't know what is happening to him except that his mind, his heart, his everything feels lighter and lighter, as if ready to soar out of his physical body.

His soulbound progressively starts to manifest itself. As he marvels at it's renewed intensity, he starts to sense his soulmate's euphoria flowing through his being. This is it : the moment they've been both waiting to happen for so long. It feels surreal and simply indescribable.

Was it all it needed ? Was reverberating with his soulmate as simple and natural as it felt moments ago ? It feels too good to be true, but their soulbound shines in such a blinding light, that there's no mistake possible.

After all this time, all this sorrow... He cannot comprehend how he made it possible, but his heart feels, feels and feels so much, everything. He can only allows himself to get lost in the bliss that invades his being and he surrenders to it, relief washing over him as finally his emotions aren't only his own anymore.

Paul's there now. Physically, he's still in england but at the center of Antoine's core, his soulmate now resides just like a fraction of Antoine does in Paul's.

He understands now that all those years ago, he was wrong. His story didn't start on the day he was late to Clairefontaine for his first national team call-up. No, it only just started writing itself now. And if anyone asks Antoine, he will tell them his story will inevitably end (if it ends at all) with only one conclusion :

 

_They were unstoppable._

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The end ! Leave a comment or a kudo and I'll love not forever but 5ever.
> 
> This fic was very difficult to write and ultimately, this second chapter doesn't satisfy me. I'm glad I finished it in time and I'll never ever write a long fic like that lol.

**Author's Note:**

> I would really appreciate it if you could leave a small comments or a kudos !
> 
> This is a 2 chapters story. My true calling to write a LOTR fanfiction might maybe get the better of me and i'll be too busy writing a 10'000 long fic about Aragorn and Legolas chilling in a hut in Tol Eressëa to actually ever write the next chapter of this fic, but i really hope i'll write the second chapter !


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